Monday, September 07, 2015

The Government’s plans for new legal hurdles making it
harder for union members to take strike action are described as a “major
attack” on civil liberties in the UK, in a joint statement by Liberty, Amnesty
UK and the British Institute of Human Rights. The Trade Union Bill has already
come in for heavy criticism.

The statement concludes: “Taken together the unprecedented
measures in the Bill would hamper people’s basic rights to protest and shift
even more power from the employee to the employer. It is hard to see the aim of
this bill as anything but seeking to undermine the rights of all working
people. We owe so many of our employment
protections to Trade Unions and we join them in opposing this bill.”

Every worker wanting to join a strike picket could be forced
to identify themselves to police, carry a letter of authorisation and wear an
armband, under proposed reforms to trade union laws. The original plans set out
in the Trade Union Bill would have required only a picketing supervisor to hand
over his name and contact details to police, to wear an armband, and to carry a
letter of authorisation issued by the union. But the Government’s consultation
raises the prospect of going even further and requiring all those present at a
picket having to do the same. Liberty has described it as “authoritarian” and
would discourage workers from joining pickets in fear of being blacklisted by
employers and police.

Liberty said that demanding that all picketers hand over
contact details to police would signal a “hark back to historical problems”
between trade unions and the authorities. This was a reference to widespread
allegations that the police and security services previously passed on names
and contact details of trade union members to a database that firms consulted
before offering people jobs. “With a history of blacklisting it’s entirely
understandable why trade union members don’t want to identify themselves to the
police and give the police their phone numbers,” Sara Ogilvie, policy officer
at Liberty, said, warning that strike action would soon cease to exist in the
UK if the proposals went ahead. The proposed Bill would also constitute a
“clear breach” of Britain’s obligations under international labour standards,
experts at Liberty has claimed.

Proposals such as the requirement that unions count
abstentions in ballots as ‘no’ votes that would also be deemed illegal under
International Labour Organisation standards, of which British is a member,
Liberty claims. The Government wants to curtail strike action by requiring a
turnout of at least 50 per cent of union members for industrial action to be
legal. There would also be an additional requirement in “important” public
services that strikes be supported by at least 40 per cent of all those
eligible to vote. This would mean that any worker who abstains or forgets to
return their ballot paper would be deemed to be opposing the move –
contravening ILO standards. “We definitely think the Government is playing fast
and loose with its international obligations,” said Ms Ogilvie. She went on to explain,
“Strikes are actually a tiny, tiny part of what trade unions do, but they are
vital for acting as a stick to give trade unions and employees the opportunity
to go to employers and say ‘look: this is something we need to talk about, this
is something we need to get sorted out’ and let the employer know that the threat
of a strike is always there. If you take that threat away, people who are not
getting paid the minimum wage, people who are not getting their tips because
firms are taking them directly out of the till; they’re going to have no way of
enforcing their rights, which is completely at odds with what the Conservatives
are saying about being the party of the workers.”